The Truth Is Out
by FalconLux
Summary: This is my version of what happens after S7 Ep1. If you haven't seen that episode yet, STOP! Great many SPOILERS follow! That is the last episode that I have seen so far, so please forgive my ignorance if I rip off something from the show or wholly disappoint you by heading in a different direction. It's rated M because I could not do justice to Dexter with anything less.
1. Chapter 1

_This is my version of what happens after Season 7 episode 1. If you haven't seen that episode yet, STOP! Great many SPOILERS follow! That is that last episode that I have seen so far, so please forgive my ignorance if I rip off something from the show or wholly disappoint you by heading in a different direction. It's rated M because I could not do justice to Dexter with anything less._

_**I do not own Dexter or any rights to it. The following is of no profit to me except for my own personal enjoyment and the (hopefully) enjoyment of any readers.**_

"Did you kill all these people?" Deb asked numbly, staring at Dexter where he stood staring back at her, his expression like a man staring at the firing squad and resigned to his fate.

"I did," he said in a clear monotone after a long pause.

"Dex… Are you a serial killer?" she asked, though it was pretty much rhetorical at this point.

"Yes," he replied hollowly.

"Holy motherfuck…" Deb breathed, fighting the threatening hysteria. Finding the knives hidden in his closet had been a bad sign, but she'd known the truth as soon as she'd found the box of blood slides. She wasn't sure why it hadn't totally hit her until he'd admitted it. Some part of her must have been holding out hope that he'd have some vaguely rational explanation.

"Deb…" she heard Dex's voice say uneasily and she looked at him.

Dex stared at her silently for a long moment, then his eyes dropped to the table in front of her. She followed his gaze and realized that she was gripping her gun where she'd set it down.

An image of lifting the gun, pointing it at Dex, and putting a round through his head flashed through her mind and her stomach turned. Then she imagined shoving him down on the ground and handcuffing him, calling into the station… That didn't sit much better. He was her brother. She loved him. She was _in _love with him.

"Cocksucker!" she sputtered, letting go of the gun and lurching up out of the chair. Her hands flew to her face in a feeble attempt to keep her head from exploding. She paced quickly to the wall across the room and pressed her forehead against it, sinking slowly down to the floor, unsure if she wanted to break down crying or attack Dexter for putting her in this situation. For being a fucking serial killer!

"Deb," she heard again, this time closer.

More images flashed through her head. Dexter's arm coiling around her throat until she couldn't breathe, waking up bound and helpless while he spoke to her with utter calm, waking up strapped down to a table, naked and helpless again as his knife fell toward her chest, this time with no one to stop it…

A wordless whimper of terror escaped her lips as she lurched up away from where Dexter stood now just out of arm's reach. Too panicked for logic, she found herself crouched in the corner, staring up at Dexter's very white face.

"I would never hurt you, Deb," he said in a very quiet voice.

That small voice, vulnerable as she never remembered hearing it before, cut through her panic like a slap in the face. Despite… everything, she _knew _that Dex would never hurt her.

"If you want to arrest me, I won't resist," he continued in that same voice, his shoulders hunched slightly, like a boy expecting a hefty punishment for being caught at something he knew he shouldn't have been doing.

"Fuck, Dex!" she almost cried. "I don't know what I want! How the fuck am I supposed to know?" she demanded. "What…?" her eyes roamed aimlessly. They settled on the blood slides scattered over the table. "What the FUCK!" she screamed, abruptly furious.

Dex looked worried now. "What do you want me to say, Deb?" he asked helplessly.

"Anything!" she screamed. "Fucking something! How…? Why…? When…?" The steam slowly leaving her sails as she realized that, not only did she not know where to begin questioning him, she wasn't sure that she wanted to do it at all. It seemed absolutely certain that explanations could only make everything even worse at this point.

"I'm sorry, Deb," Dex implored. "I'm so sorry. I never wanted you to find out… This isn't your burden…"

"Burden!" she screamed, latching on that word. "Is that what you call it! Mother of fuck, Dexter! You fucking kill people! There's like forty _fucking_ slides here!"

Dexter grimaced, and for once, Deb understood exactly what it meant.

"There's more?" she asked in horror, and then it hit her. She should have seen it sooner. Her eyes were just about as wide as they could go when they turned back to the box of slides. She'd seen a box like that before. _Exactly_ like that. "Were you and Doax working together?" she breathed, her eyes seeking his once more.

At this, Dexter's eyes closed and he sank down onto the couch as far away from her as he could. "Doax was innocent," he said wearily after a long moment of silence.

Deb's stomach turned so violently that she thought for a moment she actually _was _going to throw up. "Fucking… shit fuck. You killed him. You _framed _him?"

"No!" Dex said forcefully, his eyes shooting back up to meet hers. "Deb, I couldn't."

Deb stared hard at him, trying to force the truth out of him with her eyes alone.

After a moment, Dexter sighed and leaned back tiredly. "He found out about me. We fought. I… I took him prisoner. I couldn't kill him. He'd never murdered anyone. He didn't fit the code. I was going to let him go. Turn myself in. But then…"

"How did he die?" Deb demanded when he'd fallen silent for almost a minute.

"Lila found him," Dex frowned. "She… She was trying to protect me…"

"She _knew_?" Deb asked, for some reason both increasingly disgusted at that thought and hurt that he would share with Lila what he had never shared with his own sister.

"She was stalking me," he said darkly. "She found out when she found Doax, I guess. She blew up the cabin with him inside. His getting blamed for what I had done… That was an accident. Afterward… It didn't seem right to make his sacrifice meaningless, so I…"

"You let everyone think that he was the Bay Harbor Butcher," Deb finished for him, torn between outrage at what he'd done to Doax's memory and relieved that her brother hadn't been caught. "Wait, what about Lila?"

Dex's eyes fell to the slides, "She didn't get away with it."

Deb swallowed bile. Lila had been his girlfriend, and he'd killed her. Then another thought occurred to her. "If you're the Bay Harbor Butcher…"

He winced slightly.

"What?"

"I really hate that name," he muttered.

He cared about _that _right now? "All of the victims we found were criminals…"

"Murderers," Dex corrected. "That's the code. _My_ code. All of my victims were murderers. I may not follow the law, Deb, but I make absolutely certain that they're guilty." His voice and eyes were both pleading with her to understand.

Deb's stomach was turning again. She couldn't stop seeing that moment when Dex had driven the knife in Travis. All she could think about was that knife falling, not toward Travis, but toward all the others. Dozens, maybe more than a hundred people that he'd murdered. She believed him that they were all murderers. She'd been front and center on the Bay Harbor case. She'd seen the evidence up close and been through it thousands of times in her head. The Bay Harbor Butcher was as much serial killer as he was vigilante.

And when the fuck had she started rationalizing vigilantes as acceptable?!

Her eyes met Dex's again as they implored her to understand. Since she had found out that Dexter was a serial killer, her entire world had turned upside down and inside out. Everything was different now. Everything she'd ever believed as a cop or as a person had just gone out the window. The only chance she had to ever get that back was to do what that person would have done and arrest her brother immediately.

But she knew that that wasn't going to happen. This was Dexter. No matter what he'd been hiding from her and the rest of the world… Regardless of what he _was_… He was still her brother, and she still loved him just as much as she ever had. She had no idea what this was going to do to their relationship, but she knew that she wasn't going to arrest him.

She pushed herself up off the floor and dropped onto the couch at his side, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him hard.

The tears started immediately, followed by uncontrollable sobs. "Damn you, Dex. God damn you…" she wept onto his shoulder. His hands came to rest hesitantly on her back as he returned her embrace in the uncertain, awkward way that was so very "Dexter". The feel of his familiar hug helped to wipe away some of the terrible last few hours, reminding her that he was most certainly still her brother. Her love.

Fuck, she was fucked up.

**_I'm not sure if I'm going to do anymore with this one at this point. Let me know if you like it, as that will most likely impact my decision. Let me know if you don't like it too. Come on people, I went to the work to write this for your reading pleasure, you could take a minute or two to write a review, right? Right? Riiiiggghhhtt?_**


	2. Chapter 2

_Okay, so I'd pretty much planned this as a oneshot, but given the response I've gotten, I've decided to continue it. Just let me know if you get sick of it._

_****WARNING****__ This chapter contains sexual situations and future chapters will most likely contain scenes of a very graphic sexual nature. You have been warned._

Chapter 2

Dexter woke up slumped on his couch with Deb curled up in his lap, still asleep with her cheek against his chest. His gaze trailed around the demolished room, settling on the coffee table where all of his deepest, darkest secrets lay in the open. Exposed.

And Deb… It seemed impossible to believe that she had truly learned his secret, but she had. And she'd fallen asleep in his arms. She hadn't arrested him. Or shot him. Either had seemed a rather likely possibility to him when he'd admitted to being a serial killer.

She'd reacted emotionally of course. She was Deborah. She was a creature of emotion; just the opposite of him. Her entire world seemed to revolve around her emotions. And now she had to cope with his secret. He sighed unhappily. He hadn't wanted that. Disregarding what it meant to him, he'd never wanted it for her. It wasn't fair that she had to share his burden.

Dexter had thought he was going to lose it when Deb had looked at him with fear, as though he might hurt her. He had killed his brother to protect her. He would kill anyone to protect his sister. Anyone.

He realized that he'd tightened his arms around her possessively when she moaned softly and began to wake.

He felt a spike of fear as she stirred. He had no idea what she might do when she woke and remembered the previous night as he had. He all but held his breath as he watched her and waited for her to remember. To pull away from him. To look at him with accusation, fear, hatred… maybe all of those.

He knew when she was really awake, because she froze, her face turned down, away from his searching gaze.

After an agonizingly long moment, she drew away from him just a little, one hand resting flat against his chest, just over his heart. She lifted her head until their eyes met.

He struggled to interpret her expression, but found that he couldn't. He'd never been good at reading emotions – not even Deb's – but this one seemed even more confusing than usual.

"Dex," she whispered softly, her hand sliding up his chest, over his collarbone, and coming to rest on his neck.

Dexter swallowed hard, uncomfortable with her closeness. Deb had never touched him like this before. Harry would kill him if he knew what her touch was stirring in him.

"Deb," he said uneasily, searching for the right thing to say. "Are you okay?" he asked, knowing that it wasn't right but unable to come up with anything better.

She frowned slightly and her eyes fell to study his mouth, which in no way helped him to think clearly.

Deb shot a quick glance toward the table covered in damning evidence, then looked at him again. "No," she said quietly. "I'm not even close to okay, Dex. How the fuck can you even ask me that?"

Dexter winced. He'd known that that was the wrong thing to say. Despite her words though, she wasn't yelling at him, or even moving away. Her tone was quiet and her thumb was lightly stroking the line of his jaw. He swallowed convulsively and reminded himself sternly that she was his sister. He couldn't think of her like that. She was just stressed out. That must have been the reason. No doubt anyone else would know exactly why she was acting like this.

"Um, do you want to… You know… Ask me something?" he offered hesitantly, certain that he was going to say something wrong again.

Her frown deepened in response. "No," she said very quietly. "But I need to tell you something."

"Okay," he said, his voice quiet as well. He was afraid of startling her. He may not know anything about emotions, but he knew predator and prey very well. Right now, she looked like frightened prey that may flee at any moment.

"Dex," she began hesitantly, her eyes boring into his like she was trying to look right through them into his brain. "There was a reason that I came to the church. I wanted to talk to you about…" She stopped abruptly, grimaced, and looked maybe a little lost. "Shit… I mean, I wanted to tell you that…" she stepped again and turned her gaze away from him to look around the room.

She stared at the coffee table for a long moment. "What the fuck…?" she murmured under her breath. "Damnit, Dex, what I'm trying to say is…"

She looked at him again and grimaced like she might have been in physical pain. Her eyes strayed back to his lips and her face slowly began to clear.

Just when he thought she was going to speak again, she abruptly leaned forward, closing the few inches between them, and crushed her lips into his.

Dexter froze, stunned. He couldn't understand what she was doing. He was certain that he must be misunderstanding this, though he couldn't imagine what other explanation there might be. Maybe she'd slipped? Maybe she'd meant to headbutt him?

Afraid of doing the absolute wrong thing, he didn't move a single muscle.

Then Deb pulled away from him as quickly as she'd advanced, staring at him like she was afraid he was going to attack her or something.

"I… Fuck, that was fucking stupid!" she cursed herself savagely. Then she seemed to notice that she was still sitting practically in his lap and she started to lurch away from him.

And it hit him. He hadn't read that wrong. She had absolutely just kissed him.

He reached out with violent speed, caught her wrist, and yanked her back down. His free hand tangled in her hair and his mouth enveloped hers.

She reacted almost instantly, stabbing her tongue into his mouth while she moved lithely to straddle him. Her arms curled around his neck, catching him and holding him to her.

Her hips ground into his lap and his body reacted with enthusiasm.

Deb leaned away from him just a little and her hands snaked under his shirt.

"Dexter, what are you doing?!" Harry's voice thundered through the room, bringing Dexter back to his senses.

What _was _he doing? This was Deb! It didn't make sense that this was happening. She must have been reacting to the trauma of learning the truth about him. He couldn't take advantage of her. And what would happen when she came to her senses? Would he lose her forever?

His hands closed around her chest under her arms and he all but threw her off him, stumbling to his feet while Deb bounced onto the couch next to where they'd been together.

She stared at him with shock that must have matched his own.

Silence reigned in the room for a long time, then Harrison's voice came from the back of the apartment.

"Daddy!"

Relieved beyond belief for the excuse, Dexter turned away from his sister and hurried to see to his son.

**More to come soon!


End file.
